In a beautifully melded English and Spanish liturgy, amidst Latin trumpet flourishes and music written by Skinner Chavez-Melo, the Rev. Canon Leopoldo Jesus Alard became the Rt. Rev. Leo Alard, seventh Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Texas Sept. 9. More than 1,100 friends and family stood witness as 22 bishops laid hands on him.

Canon Alard knelt in front of Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning. He was engulfed in a sea of red vestments as bishops surrounded him with outstretched arms. Bishop Browning prayed, "Father, make Leopoldo a bishop in your Church. Pour upon him the power of your princely Spirit," as rainbows of light poured through the 20-foot stained glass windows in the convent chapel of Episcopal High School in Houston.

When the bishops stepped back, Bishop Alard emerged to be vested in his red chimere, gold pectoral cross and ring. The Rev. Dena Harrison, who received the second highest number of votes in the May 12 episcopal election, presented Bishop Alard with his stole. His crozier, carved by boys in an Episcopal orphanage in Honduras, was a gift from the Diocese of Honduras.

Thunderous applause erupted when the Presiding Bishop presented to the congregation the newly consecrated bishop, his wife, Aida, and 7-year-old daughter, Rebecca.

"Be faithful, seek out the bewildered and the lost," Bishop Anselmo Carral had said in his sermon. A longtime friend of the Alards, Bishop Carral admonished the new bishop to know his people and not minimize the common person. The now retired Assistant Bishop of Texas continued with a charge to Bishop Alard: "Faith makes us believable and its absence is impossible to disguise. Passion makes us persuasive and will help you accomplish much. Authority is what we need as ambassadors of our Holy Father and grace will keep a priest a listener."

Bishop Alard's father and brother were in attendance at his consecration, as were many friends from St. John's Church, his former parish in Homestead, Fla. The bishop's ring is set with his grandmother's amethyst, smuggled out of Cuba by his mother in 1961 when the family fled their homeland. Bishop Alard's great-grandmother was a founding member of the first Episcopal church in Cuba.

Bishop Alard received his master's degree in divinity from the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and did graduate studies in Switzerland and at the University of the South. Following his ordination, he spent 15 years as rector in Homestead, where he also was headmaster of an Episcopal school. Former canon for multicultural ministries in the Diocese of Texas, he was also vicar of the diocese's fastest-growing congregation, Santa Cruz.